Volume 201 - Issue 6
Getting mental health reform back on track: a leadership challenge for the new Australian Government
Author: Paul Dignam
Med J Aust 2014; 201 (6): 322. || doi: 10.5694/mja14.00712
Published online: 15 September 2014
Published online: 15 September 2014
Was mental health reform ever really “on track”?
To the Editor: I am not sure that mental health reform was ever “on track”, so getting it back there is a considerable challenge. Hickie and colleagues' aspirational document reads well,1 but I am not sure of its basis in reality.
Perhaps early intervention services for young people can be “transformative”, but the reference cited to support that claim says no such thing.2 It is a summary description of people attending a new service. Surely we would wait for the outcome data before rapidly implementing the strategy.
The summing-up statement about accumulated research on suicide prevention similarly implies we are in a real position to do specific things, but the cited reference makes no such grand claims: “Evidence from seven systematic studies … indicated that some interventions may be promising” (my emphasis).3 We do not yet know what the tools are, so the debate about whether we can afford them at scale is premature.
It troubles me that supposed leaders in the field talk of “early intervention” at the age of 16 years: where are the goals for early childhood?
Competing interests
No relevant disclosures.
References
- Hickie IB, McGorry PD, Davenport TA, et al. Getting mental health reform back on track: a leadership challenge for the new Australian Government. Med J Aust 2014; 200: 445-448. 1
- Scott EM, Hermens DF, Glozier N, et al. Targeted primary care-based mental health services for young Australians. Med J Aust 2012; 196: 136-140. 2
- Scott A, Guo B. For which strategies of suicide prevention is there evidence of effectiveness? World Health Organization Health Evidence Network synthesis report. Copenhagen: WHO, 2012. http://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/noncommunicable-diseases/mental-health/publications/2012/for-which-strategies-of-suicide-prevention-is-there-evidence-of-effectiveness (accessed Aug 2014).